MICHAEL STEVEN COHEN – 100TH PERFORMANCE AT THE SALOON! With The Everly Hillbillies and EC
Sunday, April 6 | 6:00 PM
MSC: “Sunday April 6th I will be celebrating my 100th show at the great Montrose Saloon. I started out playing my guitar under an umbrella in the yard. This was at the summer of the year Covid started, 2020. I’d seen friend and fellow musician Rob Schulz posting about playing outside there. He had me contact the owner Eric Chial and I played for a while on a Sunday afternoon. I sing old standards and play an acoustic guitar. It worked well…and here we are 99 shows and almost five years later.
For the 100th show I wanted to do something different. My longtime bassist Edward Hasse has been rehabbing from a double lung transplant this summer. He told me he was raring to play again. Looking forward to playing again at the place we’d spent many hours filling with music. Longtime friend and band mate Mark Fornek will join us on drums. Mark is one of Chicago’s premier drummers, he is an absolute joy of a guy.
I’d been wanting to do a little collaboration with Eric for a while. We picked out a handful of awesome and unexpected songs to cover. I know you will like them.
Capping off the show will be my new band, The Everly Hillbillies. The name goes back to about 2013 or so…and the band has had some great lineups over the years, including friend Edan (Phil was his uncle). Oh the stories we could tell. I’ve been singing Everly music for about 40 years, it’s pretty crazy. I felt that it time to rip it up again, and I’m happy to be joined by Fred Morg Mark Fornek and Mike Conroy for our debut. Keeping with my Vintage Love Songs theme, I’ve put together a set of songs by the great Bryants.
About 11 years ago I was playing a gig for Elle Quintana at Reggies Music Joint. It was a Reggie’s Anniversary/Smoked Meats Fest and my band was called WhatEverly Bros. It was April 6th… and I met my future wife Judy Hammond Sperling right then and there. This is a loving tribute to her too.
In addition…there’ll be a guy selling BBQ there because this is gonna be a party. If you’ve wanted to catch a show of mine…your first or fiftieth, boy…I’d love to see you. Cheers!”
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